Running head: THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION THROUGH WRITING

University “Fan.S.Noli”

Faculty of Education and Philology

Department of Foreign Languages

English Language Study Program (Bachelor)

Research Paper

Thesis: “The History of Civilization through Writing”

Worked by: Gerald Medi Accepted by: Stylistics class

July, 2020
THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION THROUGH WRITING

Abstract
In the paper, a short discussion on the role of writing in the history of civilization is

presented. The origins of writing are analyzed and some facts of modern script inventions are

found to confirm its dual nature, both from economical and spiritual (religious) needs. Similar

development of writing in different world regions and identical internal structure of logographic

scripts can be the evidence for the universality of human thinking. A connection between the

types of civilization and the “philosophy” of writing is pointed.

Keywords: writing, civilization, scripts, alphabets, modern times.

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Outline
INTRODUCTION

I. CHAPTER 1-ORIGINS OF WRITING

A. Mesopotamia

B. Egypt

C. China

D. Europe

E. Mesoamerica

II. CHAPTER 2-WRITING DEVELOPMENT STAGES

A. Pictography

B. Ideogram and Logogram

C. Syllabary

D. Alphabets

III. CHAPTER 3-“WESTERN” CIVILIZATION

A. Persian cuneiform

B. Phoenician alphabet

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IV. CHAPTER 4-“EASTERN” CIVILIZATION

A. China

B. India

V. CHAPTER 5-MODERN PARALLELS

A. Latin script

B. Arabic script

C. Cyrillic script

VI. CHAPTER 6-CREATION OF WRITING SYSTEMS IN THE

MODERN TIMES

A. North America

B. Africa

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION

Writing has played a vital role in the development of the civilization and the invention of

writing has been proved to be one of the most valuable inventions for the humanity. Writing has

helped the civilizations to carry the tradition, achievements, experience, and knowledge, which

was successfully delivered to the next generation, and the next generation delivered the same to

the next generation and so on after getting the benefits of all things.

Writing is considered as one of the most important inventions of the civilization, which

has benefitted the humanity in a number of ways. The art of writing has been developed at many

places, and with the cooperation of many over a period of thousands of years.

The type of writing has been developed from a primeval idea, into a fully developed

alphabetical system in different phases of time.

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I. CHAPTER I-ORIGINS OF WRITING

Writing systems are generally believed to be the successors of the “proto-writing”, which

included early ideographic or mnemonic symbols. The following periods can be regarded as

birthplaces of writing: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Europe, and Mesoamerica.

A. Mesopotamia

Sumerian cuneiform is probably the most ancient known form of writing. It dated

from the fourth millennium BC. Its roots are seen in the early pictographs portrayed on

clay tablets. In his book “Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems” (2004), Coulmas

states that the proto-elamite script from Iran is slightly younger; it was developed around

3000 BC.

B. Egypt

The origins of Egyptian hieroglyphs remain uncertain as all the confirmed

inscriptions show a quite developed form of writing. The hieroglyphic writing system

developed throughout the course of centuries into hieratic and demotic scripts. Modern

alphabets can be traced back to these later forms.

C. China

Chinese characters are the only ancient form of writing survived to these days.

The first known inscriptions are the oracle bones from 2000 BC.

D. Europe

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Minoan Cretan hieroglyphic script is often considered as an independent

invention being the earliest of the so-called group of Aegean scripts, which include in

particular Linear A1.

E. Mesoamerica

The earliest known writing system in Mesoamerica is Olmec and belongs to the

first millennium BC2.

To a large extent, the emergence of writing in these societies is linked with

economical needs, especially those of trade. We can also mention that the economical

component played a crucial, if not a determining role in the origin of writing. This

observation is further analyzed by Derrida, in the book “Grammatology” (1997).

II. CHAPTER 2-WRITING DEVELOPMENT STAGES

The development of writing can be categorized as follows:

A. In pictography, visible signs denote meaning without being conventionally linked

with fixed linguistic form3. Sentence writing is a type of writing, in which symbols

are linked to linguistic units larger than words ( e.g phrases or sentences). Some

examples are: Ewe proverbs4 in West Africa, Nsibidi script (Nigeria)5.

B. Ideogram and Logogram

1
Owens,1996
2
Rodriguez Martinez, 2006
3
Coulmas, 2004
4
Friedrich, 1966
5
Dayrell, 1911

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The terms “ideogram” and “logogram” are often mixed. However, ideograms are

used for non-linguistic symbols (like numbers), and logograms are used for written signs

representing words or morphemes6. The first stage of writing is believed to be

logographic.

In proto-writing, used for inventories and the like, physical objects are

represented by stylized or conventionalized pictures, or pictograms. Some systems also

use ideograms, symbols denoting abstract concepts.

The term “ideogram” is often used to describe symbols of writing systems such

as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese characters. However, these

symbols represent elements of a particular language, mostly words or morphemes (so that

they are logograms), rather than objects or concepts. In these writing systems, a variety of

strategies were employed in the design of logographic symbols. Pictographic symbols

depict the object referred to by the word. Some words denoting abstract concepts may be

represented iconically, but most other words are represented using the Rebus principle.

The Rebus principle is “representing a word by means of the logogram of another,

which is phonetically similar or homophonous”. There are many examples from English,

such as: Xmas=Christmas; 4U=For you etc.

C. In syllabaries, written signs indicate syllables. they developed from logographic

systems by means of systematic application of the rebus principle, and by means of

the sign inventory. This led to the reduction of several symbols used in writing.

D. Alphabets include symbols, which express different individual phonemes. As

Daniels (1990) states, the syllabaries evolved into the so-called “consonant

6
Coulmas, 2004

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alphabets”, sometimes considered as a form of syllabary. The introduction of vowels

came at a later point during the development of the alphabets.

The first fully phonemic script, the Proto-Canaanite script, later known as

the Phoenician alphabet, is considered to be the first alphabet, and is the ancestor of most

modern alphabets, including Arabic, Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and

possibly Brahmic. 

Peter T. Daniels, however, distinguishes an abugida or alphasyllabary, a set of

graphemes that represent consonantal base letters which diacritics modify to represent

vowels (as in Devanagari and other South Asian scripts), an abjad, in which letters

predominantly or exclusively represent consonants (as in the original

Phoenician, Hebrew or Arabic), and an "alphabet", a set of graphemes that represent

both vowels and consonants. In this narrow sense of the word the first "true" alphabet

was the Greek alphabet, which was developed on the basis of the earlier Phoenician

alphabet.

Of the dozens of alphabets in use today, the most popular is the Latin alphabet,

which was derived from the Greek, and which many languages modify by adding letters

formed using diacritical marks. While most alphabets have letters composed of lines

(linear writing), there are also exceptions such as the alphabets used in Braille.

The Khmer alphabet (for Cambodian) is the longest, with 74 letters.

Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of letters. This makes

them useful for purposes of collation, specifically by allowing words to be sorted

in alphabetical order. It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method

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of "numbering" ordered items, in such contexts as numbered lists and number

placements.

III. CHAPTER 3-“WESTERN” CIVILIZATION

This term refers to the Middle East and European civilizations, which are characterized

by the development of science. For example, in Ancient Greece, the scientific knowledge had

risen in its modern function.

A. Persian cuneiform

Several cuneiform scripts are known for not being direct descendants of the

above-mentioned ones (e.g Sumerian cuneiform). These are the Persic cuneiform, which

is an almost entirely syllabic script, and Ugaritic alphabet. They didn’t overlast for a long

period, but they preserved only an external form of writing.

Scholars today mostly agree that the Old Persian script was invented by about 525

BC to provide monument inscriptions for the Achaemenid king Darius I, to be used

at Behistun. While a few Old Persian texts seem to be inscribed during the reigns

of Cyrus the Great, the first Achaemenid emperor, or Arsames and Ariaramnes,

grandfather and great-grandfather of Darius I, all five, specially the later two, are

generally agreed to have been later inscriptions.Around the time period in which Old

Persian was used, nearby languages included Elamite and Akkadian.

One of the main differences between the writing systems of these languages is

that Old Persian is a semi-alphabet while Elamite and Akkadian were syllabic. In

addition, while Old Persian is written in a consistent semi-alphabetic system, Elamite and

Akkadian used borrowings from other languages, creating mixed systems.

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B. Phonetical Alphabet

From around 1000 BC, the creation of Phoenician alphabet was the source of

most modern alphabets, e.g the Greek and Latin alphabets. Greeks were the first to use

signs indicating vowels in a systematic function. This was a major breakthrough in the

development of writing. “The invention of the alphabet was a unique event in the history

of civilization” (Coulmas,2004).

The Phoenician alphabet is also called the Early Linear script (in a Semitic

context, not connected to Minoan writing systems), because it is an early development of

the pictographic Proto- or Old Canaanite script, into a linear, alphabetic script, also

marking the transfer from a multi-directional writing system, where a variety of writing

directions occurred, to a regulated horizontal, right-to-left script7.  Its immediate

predecessor, the Proto-Canaanite, Old Canaanite or early West Semitic alphabet, used in

the final stages of the Late Bronze Age in the Syro-Hittite kingdoms, is the oldest fully

matured alphabet, ultimately derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Its use in Phoenicia (coastal Levant) led to its wide dissemination outside of the

Canaanite sphere, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world,

where it was adopted and modified by many other cultures. It became one of the most

widely used writing systems.

The Phoenician alphabet proper remained in use in Ancient Carthage until the 2nd

century BC, while elsewhere it diversified into numerous national alphabets, including

the Aramaic and Samaritan, several Anatolian scripts, and the early Greek alphabets.

7
Frank Moore(1980)

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In the Near East, the Aramaic alphabet became especially successful, giving rise

to the Hebrew and Arabic scripts, among others. The Greek alphabet in turn gave rise to

numerous derived scripts, including Latin, Cyrillic, Runic, and Coptic.

The Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician8. With a different phonology,

the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script to represent their own sounds, including the

vowels absent in Phoenician. It was possibly more important in Greek to write out vowel

sounds: Phoenician being a Semitic language, words were based on consonantal roots that

permitted extensive removal of vowels without loss of meaning, a feature absent in

the Indo-European Greek.

However, Akkadian cuneiform, which wrote a related Semitic language, did

indicate vowels, which suggests the Phoenicians simply accepted the model of the

Egyptians, who never wrote vowels. In any case, the Greeks repurposed the Phoenician

letters of consonant sounds not present in Greek; each such letter had its name shorn of its

leading consonant, and the letter took the value of the now-leading vowel.

IV. CHAPTER 4- “EASTERN” CIVILIZATION

In contrast from the Western civilization, Eastern civilization is a term used for

China together with the cultural influence, which can be applied to India.

A. China

It is an example of contrast between the two civilizations, the Western and the

Eastern civilizations. A different philosophy of writing is found here: In the west, the

number of symbols used in writing, was reduced. On the other hand, in the East,
8
John William (2006).

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especially in China, the number of writing characters was increased, mainly by the usage

of the Rebus principle.

There have recently been discoveries of tortoise-shell carvings dating back to c.

6000 BC, like Jiahu Script, Banpo Script, but whether or not the carvings are complex

enough to qualify as writing is under debate9. At Damaidi in the Ningxia Hui

Autonomous Region, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000–5000 BC have been discovered,

featuring 8,453 individual characters, such as the sun, moon, stars, gods, and scenes of

hunting or grazing. These pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters

confirmed to be written Chinese. If it is deemed to be a written language, writing in

China will predate Mesopotamian cuneiform, long acknowledged as the first appearance

of writing, by some 2,000 years; however it is more likely that the inscriptions are rather

a form of proto-writing, similar to the contemporary European Vinca script.

B. India

India was affected by both Eastern and Western civilizations. The earliest scripts

found here belong to the 5th century BC. They were syllabic, where each symbol denoted

a consonant+ a vowel (usually a or o) .

The Brahmi script is the earliest writing system developed in India after the Indus

script. It is one of the most influential writing systems; all modern Indian scripts and

several hundred scripts found in Southeast and East Asia are derived from Brahmi.

Around this time, another script also developed in the region, known as

Kharosthi, which remained dominant in the Indus Valley region, while the Brahmi script

was employed in the rest of India and other parts of South Asia. Although we are
9
"Archaeologists Rewrite History"(June 2003)

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confident that Kharosthi is an adaptation of Semitic, the connection between Brahmi and

Semitic remains unclear.

V. CHAPTER 5-MODERN PARALLELS

In the modern world, it was observed the relation between script usage and cultural, religious

influences of its users.

A. The Latin script is a descendant of the Western variety of the Greek alphabet. The Latin

alphabet is identified with the expansion of the Western civilization and its values.

This is derived from a form of the Cumaean Greek version of the Greek alphabet used by

the Etruscans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and

phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet.

The Latin script is the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet and the 26 most

widespread letters are the letters contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.

Latin script is the basis for the largest number of alphabets of any writing system10 and is

the most widely adopted writing system in the world (commonly used by about 70 percent of the

world's population). Latin script is used as the standard method of writing in most Western,

Central, as well as in some Eastern European languages, as well as in many languages in other

parts of the world.

10
Haarmann 2004

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The Latin alphabet spread, along with Latin, from the Italian Peninsula to the lands

surrounding the Mediterranean Sea with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The eastern half of

the Empire, including Greece, Turkey, the Levant, and Egypt, continued to use Greek as a lingua

franca, but Latin was widely spoken in the western half, and as the western Romance

languages evolved out of Latin, they continued to use and adapt the Latin alphabet.

In the course of its use, the Latin alphabet was adapted for use in new languages,

sometimes representing phonemes not found in languages that were already written with the

Roman characters. To represent these new sounds, extensions were therefore created, be it by

adding diacritics to existing letters, by joining multiple letters together to make ligatures, by

creating completely new forms, or by assigning a special function to pairs or triplets of letters.

These new forms are given a place in the alphabet by defining an alphabetical order or collation

sequence, which can vary with the particular language.

B. The Arabic script is closely connected with the Islamic world. It is a writing

system used for writing Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa, such

as Persian, Kurdish, Sindhi, among others.

It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by the number of countries

using it and the third by the number of users, after the Latin and Chinese scripts.

The Arabic script is written from right to left in a cursive style, in which most of the

letters are written in slightly different forms according to whether they stand alone or are

joined to a following or preceding letter. The basic letter form remains unchanged. In most

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cases, the letters transcribe consonants or consonants and a few vowels, so most Arabic

alphabets are abjads. Additionally, it does not have capital letters11.

The script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Qurʼān, the holy book

of Islam. With the spread of Islam, it came to be used as the primary script for many

language families, leading to the addition of new letters and other symbols, with some

versions, such as Kurdish, Uyghur and old Bosnian being true alphabets. It is also the basis

for the tradition of Arabic calligraphy. Additionally, prior to the language reform in 1928, it

was the writing system of Turkish. In Turkey, during an attempt of influencing the

population towards education, in 1928, the Latin-based alphabet was introduced instead of

the Arabic orthography.

C. While the Arabic script was closely connected with Islam, the Cyrillic script, on the other

hand, was closely connected Orthodoxy. A great example of this phenomenon, is the use of the

Latin-based orthography by Croats, who are Catholics, and the use of the Cyrillic script by

Serbians, who are orthodox. A more detailed discussion on the relation of religion and writing

can be found in the work of Coulmas (2004).

11
Syed Barakat. Introduction to Qur’an script

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VI. CREATION OF WRITING SYSTEMS IN THE MODERN TIMES

Writing systems appeared also in the Modern times, mostly in North America and

in Africa. These new systems were Latin-based (an exception was made in Russia, where

the Cyrillic script was used for these purposes). However, the most intriguing cases were

those of a native script invention.

A. In 1821, in North America, researchers presented a syllabary to the

Indians, which was widely accepted by the latter. Its special feature is that

some symbols included not only the phonetic value, but the instructions for

gestures as well.

An example of these syllabaries is “The Cherokee syllabary” which was

invented by Sequoyah in the late 1810s and early 1820s to write the Cherokee

language. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy as he could not

previously read any script12.

He first experimented with logograms, but his system later developed into

a syllabary. In his system, each symbol represents a syllable rather than a

single phoneme; the 85 (originally 86)13 characters provide a suitable method to

write Cherokee. Although some symbols resemble Latin, Greek,

and Cyrillic letters, they are not used to represent the same sounds.

12
Diamond, Jared (1999)
13
Sturtevant & Fogelson (2004)

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Several scripts are also known in Alaska, such as picture writing (before

1914), which was later updated in new forms of picture-writing, “until the quick

development from this form into a syllabic script” (Friedrich, 1996).

B. Africa is a homeland for many writing systems, which were created in the

19th and 20th centuries. The Vai script is the most known example. Some

evidences support the theory that its creation was inspired by the Cherokee

syllabary, according to Tuchscherer (2002).

On his book “Further Indigenous Scripts of West Africa” (1969), Dalby

came to the conclusion that as a result of the “stimulus diffusion” from Vai, other

scripts of the region, such as: Mende, Kpelle, and Loma alphabets emerged in this

area.

In modern African indigenous scripts, virtually no special attention is paid

to any special notation of proper names. Only a handful of them is different in this

respect. A name determinative, the reminiscence of the ideographic stage of

script's rapid evolution, is attested in the Bamum script: a sign called ndʒəmli is

used before personal names (Schmitt 1963).

Most of the discussed scripts are unicameral. In fact, this follows an

overall statistics in the world as only some alphabetic scripts (Greek, Roman,

Cyrillic, Armenian) utilize two cases. However, even in bicameral scripts not

always the case is used to distinguish proper names.

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Dalby(1969) also states that some of these new-formed scripts, were

created within local Christian communities. These scripts were used for

constructed languages, such as: Yoruba, Okaime etc. This component in the

emergence of writing is essential.

The most interesting native African invention is probably the Bamum

script, invented by King Ibrahim Njoya in Cameroon. In its original form when it

was created in 1896, the script was logographic, but it quickly evolved into a

syllabic one, with alphabetical elements in about two decades. Furthermore, it had

a descendant script, the Bagam language14.

CONCLUSIONS

From this study, several conclusions can be made regarding the

development of writing and its relation to the development to mankind:

1. The logographic writing systems have a similar internal structure,

which is related by the universality of human thinking.

2. A very close interaction exists between the way of writing and

thinking.

3. In modern times, new writing systems emerged under the influence

of external forces via the “stimulus diffusion”.

14
Tuchscherer,1999

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4. Both economical and spiritual components are crucial in the

origins of writing.

The above-mentioned facts, clearly support the thesis that writing is one of

the most important elements in the history, and the development of civilization.

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APPENDIX

Comparative evolution of pictogram to abstract shapes, in

cuneiform, Egyptian and Chinese characters.

The Phoenician alphabet

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The Persian Cuneiform

The Arabic script

The Cherokee syllabary

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The Cyrillic script

The Greek alphabet

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REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

COULMAS, F. Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Blackwell Publishing,

2004

DALBY, D. Further Indigenous Scripts of West Africa, Vol. 10, 1969

DAYRELL, E. Further Notes on 'Nsibidi Signs with their Meanings from the Ikom

District, Southern Nigeria

CROSS, FRANK MOORE. "Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early

Phoenician Scripts"

JOHN WILLIAM (2006). Ancient technology. Greenwood guides to historic events

of the ancient world 

OWENS, G. A. The Common Origin of Cretan Hieroglyphs and Linear A, 1996

RODRIGUEZ MARTINEZ, Oldest Writing in the New World, 2006

SCHMITT, ALFRED. 1963.

TUCHSCHERER, K. History of Writing in Africa, 1999

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Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_cuneiform

Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Chinese_writing

Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet

Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideogram

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